It was a milestone achievement for the Ministry of Agriculture and Waterways with the launch of the VitiAgriDataHub Information Management system today.

A mobile and web application named VitiAgriDataHub has been designed to better record and disseminate farmer information and agriculture statistics at all levels of decision-making in the Ministry.

While speaking at the launch the Permanent Secretary for Agriculture and Waterways, Dr Andrew Tukana said data is a significant component of our activities in areas of developing plans and policy formulation.

He said over the past decade, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has driven global development in an exceptional way, and today it has become a transformative force for socio-economic development.

“Agriculture is part of this revolution and is increasingly becoming more knowledge-intensive with a rapidly growing supply and demand for farming data,” said Dr Tukana.

The VitiAgriDataHub system will be a centralized database that records farmer profiles and farm information along with geographical referencing location data, as well as production, trade, the assistance provided, farm clusters and agro inputs data and will streamline data operations by connecting all staff through one hub.

Dr Tukana said that the hub is a solid foundation securing a central repository for all agriculture data for the future.

“This will allow easy access to real-time farmer’s data, and it will enhance productivity and efficiency, ensuring timely and targeted agricultural extension services to provide data-driven holistic views of Fiji’s agriculture sector to support planning and decision making,” he said.

He said the daily operation of the extension officers, requires accurate information on the farmers they serve and on the latest agriculture statistics, hence, this will allow them to accelerate the decision-making processes and ensures targeted farm solutions and interventions while out in the field.

Dr Tukana added that the ease of access to farmer information is also required at the management level to ensure timely, effective and relevant responses to staff and farmers.

“The Ministry is currently revamping the way it delivers its services to farmers, and technology is a vital component to improve these services.”

This is supported by the Ministry’s 5-year Strategic Development Plan which emphasizes the need to establish a National Farmers ID System by the year 2023. This will lead to the development of improved farmer profiles and farm databases that will ensure better monitoring and evaluation of the Ministry’s activities and services.

He said the system will generate unique IDs and profile information of the 97,000 farmers who are currently recorded under the 2020 Fiji Agriculture Census Report and other survey reports that have been carried out.

“The system will also accommodate the registration of new farmers ad farm clusters, therefore, farmers are encouraged to visit their nearest agriculture stations to acquire their farmer ID numbers, to verify and confirm their profile information which will lead them to be registered in the Ministry database,” he said.

Dr Tukana said the Ministry is committed to progressing and implementing this system for a competitive, sustainable and resilient agriculture sector.

He encouraged all staff in the Ministry especially the field officers to take ownership of this system and populate it with accurate farmer information and record all engagements with farmers and use available statistics from the system when conducting farming community awareness and planning to ensure appropriate decisions are made.

The Permanent Secretary acknowledged the Traseable Solution Team for their assistance in developing the database.

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